WebSphere Application Server data collection

You can set up SMF to collect system and job related information for the WebSphere Application Server (WAS).

You can produce two types of WAS records: activity records and interval records.

  • Activity records are created as each activity within a server is completed. An activity is a logical unit of business function. An activity can be a server or user-initiated transaction.
  • Interval records consist of data gathered at user-specified intervals. They provide capacity planning and reliability information.

Related topic

Working-with-UIE

Activity and interval records are written as a type 120 records, with the following subtypes:

  • Server Activity Record: Subtype 1
  • Server Interval Record: Subtype 3
  • J2EE Container Activity Record: Subtype 5
  • J2EE Container Interval Record: Subtype 6
  • WebContainer Activity Record: Subtype 7
  • WebContainer Interval Record: Subtype 8
  • Request Activity Record: Subtype 9
  • Outbound Request Record: Subtype 10

UIE processes the interval data for servers, J2EE containers, and WebContainers (subtypes 3, 6, and 8) and the server request activity data (subtype 9). UIE collects data from the server and container records and writes this data to the Visualizer file. Visualizer contains graphs to report on your WAS server and container activity. You can also create applications for your WAS transactions and report on WAS applications in Visualizer and model and report on your WAS applications in the BMC Performance Predictor for Mainframes.

To enable the collection of type 120 interval records, edit the SMFPRM xx parmlib member and update the SYS or SUBSYS(STC,...) statement to include the type 120 record.

SYS(TYPE(120(3,6,8,9)))


Important

The Subtype 9 records presents a unified picture of server activity and collects most of the data that is spread across the other subtypes, including the amount of IBM System z Application Assist Processor (zAAP) CPU that the server uses to process a request.

WebSphere creates one subtype 9 record for every request that the server processes, both external (such as application requests) and internal (such as when the controller talks to servant regions). You can use the subtype 9 record in place of the subtype 3, 6 and 8 records.

This section provides the following topics:

 

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